Hello, all. I’m back on FT, but I’m going to make a concerted effort to spend less time on this site, as part of my general initiative to cut back on “screen time”.

I’m posting today to provide my perspective on life here during the past 2 months (the following article was published two months ago today):

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/2022...b29e53056.html

Grid-based lockdowns started up in Shanghai during the second half of March, I think I commented on them in this forum. At the time, we felt they were annoying, but most people were okay with them: 1. they only hit several districts at a time and were relatively short; 2. they weren’t strictly enforced in most cases; and 3. It was still easy to get food (both restaurant food and groceries).

At some point towards the end of March, Shanghai received a visit from some important northerners who were less than impressed by the grid-based strategy. They gave us a phase 2 plan: all points east of the river got 4 days and when they were done, it was our turn for 4 days. This was definitely a step in the wrong direction from a comfort/convenience perspective, but we were promised all would be good after it was done, so we endured (忍耐, you know). It’s also worth noting that we could still get our favorite foods. Furthermore, those of us on the Shanghai side of the river had a full 5 days to prepare.

April ~9 was when the true gauntlet dropped, and with almost no warning at all. The directive affected nearly the entire municipality (26 million people and a larger area than DL and RI combined if I’m not mistaken). It was slated for 14 days. However, there were two catches: 1. the 14-day clock was to reset any time a positive case was detected within your community; and 2. individual community leaders called the shots. #1 wouldn’t be a big deal if your community consisted of 50 people, but if the number is 50,000, it’s pretty much guaranteed to reset until Covid is completely eradicated. More on #2 towards the end of this post.

On April 10 or April 11, I discovered that almost all my go-to food options no longer existed. We were limited to "essentials” boxes from stores like Epermart, group buys (many of which were insanely expensive), and paying mules to pick over (rapidly-depleting) convenience store shelves. Many of us were extremely hungry for two or three days while we waited for our boxes to arrive. I reduced myself to making olive fried rice.

On April 12, government rations started showing up in massive quantities, and there are no signs of this letting up. Sample items: milk, yogurt, rice, noodles, dumplings, cookies, chickens, pork, beef, eggs, tofu, onions, potatoes, carrots, celery, peppers, tomatoes, cabbage, radishes, other random Chinese vegetables, flour, sugar, cooking oil, toothpaste, toilet paper, laundry detergent, disinfectants, Chinese medicine. The food distribution is done at the district or subdistrict level, so different people get different things. It’s also worth noting that there have been reports of certain items being poached along the way to their destinations. Water has never been included, presumably because it’s heavy and they expect us to boil.

At around the same time, I started to figure out how to optimize other available channels (e.g. place orders exactly at specified times, identify well-connected neighbors, go to Aldi in person with very shortlists, simply sort out the good/bad/ugly group buys).

The short of it is that food hasn’t been much of an issue at all, apart from those first several days.

Now, I want to tell you about Covid testing. We have a seemingly limitless supply of antigen test kits and they like us to test twice daily. We upload our results to a health code app and take pictures of our completed test kits to share in the neighborhood group chat (I’m not sure why, but I go with the flow). We also have PCR tests, sometimes daily, sometimes every other day, and sometimes every 3 days. These usually take place at around 1030a; we learn about them minutes beforehand thanks to the lady who walks around downstairs with her megaphone calling out specific building numbers.

In my case, the testing place is at the elementary school next door to our community. To access the school, we have to show our Alipay health code and also throw a completed antigen test kit in a trash can (nobody seems to look at it; it’s just an admission ticket).

During the early days of the lockdown, PCR testing was extremely inefficient (the line was 1000 meters long, they made us bring silly pieces of paper with us to get in, and we had to reregister for their new app every single time). Fortunately, they worked out the kinks and now the system is a complete breeze.

I have grown to cherish PCR tests because they get me outside (my main excuse to leave on non-testing days is “bank business”, but I don’t like overusing it), and once I’m out, I take full advantage of the freedom, especially when the weather is nice.

I’ve discovered that I can go pretty much wherever I want within my district (Xuhui), especially the southern portion, which seems less important politically. For about 6 weeks, they put up police tape along almost all our sidewalks, which they later fortified with temporary fencing. Most of that was removed about a week ago. I’m still not sure what the purpose of this stuff was/is. The main result was that people ended up walking on the streets instead of the sidewalks, not a big deal because road traffic has been extremely light. However, I was reminded of the “bicycles on sidewalks” thread I started in this forum last year; the police tape put that issue to rest while it was around.

When I’m out and about, I see lots of 大白 and some streets are partially/completely blocked off. For example, last week all minor streets connecting Jing’an and Xuhui were blockaded at the border (this coincided with another Capital delegation visit). So, it was necessary to go over to Changshu Rd or Shaanxi Rd to pass (through a checkpoint). About 20% of the time, 大白 asks to see my health code and maybe where I’m going. I was only denied passage once, perhaps in part because I try to avoid known checkpoints.

I’ve deliberately refrained from political commentary in this post because I’m hoping this thread can remain in the China forum. That having been said, since many people outside of China have asked me for my insights, I feel compelled to say a little. Whether or not we like it or think it is silly, Covid-zero is important to the government here. The elderly are the most vulnerable, their vaccination rates are low, and they are highly valued (Confucian traditions, wisdom, taking care of family, etc). I can respect this thinking. Then, there is the Beijing-Shanghai dynamic (for better or for worse, those of us who live down here are pawns in this game that could drag on until November). I’m not especially happy about this, but it is what it is. The only thing that really bothers me is the fluid nature of the “rules” themselves. My neighbors often like to say, “we must follow the rules”. I’m fine with this; the thing is, nobody (including the enforcers) ever seems to know what the rules are. Given this, the path of least resistance is simply keeping us sealed off; if they do this, there won’t be any positive cases under their watch, and they can keep their jobs. If, on the other hand, they open and cases rise, heads will roll.

My predictions of when they’re going to relax things have been so poor thus far that I’m loath to pick a specific date, but it will surely happen at some point within the next month. Whenever it does, I fear that as soon as people start riding around on public transit again, there will be another surge and we’ll have to repeat this entire process. If it comes to that, at least all of us are now properly conditioned.